The Worst Race
by QoS
Summary: Drag Strip competes against another Stunticon in what will be the worst race of his life. And that was before the Combaticons bet on the other guy...
1. Drag Strip's Challenge

**Chapter 1 : Drag Strip's Challenge**

Drag Strip had raced against – and soundly beaten – humans in illegal rallies where people looked the other way when shots were fired. He had played games with humans in law enforcement vehicles, pretending injury to let them think they had a chance in hell of catching up to him, before accelerating away with a laugh. He had easily outdistanced Autobots, had once kept pace with an Aerialbot on the wing and was always the first Stunticon to leap into any situation, which was his way of racing his teammates (and winning).

He remembered every race he had ever run, the time it had taken him to do so and who he had defeated. The outcomes of all (well, nearly all) of those races were predictable and expected – he won.

The outcome of the worst race of his life, like the race itself, was not at all predictable. Drag Strip didn't see it coming.

It started when Wildrider and Breakdown returned from a raid. Soundwave had learned about an energon shipment en route to the Autobots, a gift from some groveling human settlement, and for some reason known only to Primus the two worst Stunticons had been sent to provide ground backup for the Seekers ordered to steal the energon. Drag Strip felt sure that Breakdown would return in a fit of shivering terrors and Wildrider would return in stasis lock due to extensive damage. That had happened before.

To his surprise, the raid actually succeeded. Breakdown came up with the halfway sensible plan of driving in a huge circle around the warehouse where the energon was stored, and using his engine's destructive vibrations to knock out traffic lights, train crossings and a moveable bridge. That distracted the Protectobots who had been sent to obtain the shipment. When there were human casualties all over the place, the five of them could save more people than a single too-big gestalt could.

Still, they would have combined when the Seekers hit the warehouse. Except Wildrider plowed through the upper floor of a building, spraying laser fire and chunks of concrete in all directions, and slammed head-on into Streetwise. That knocked out his forcefield, blew two of his tires and crumpled his hood, but took Defensor right off the table as an option.

Not that the Autobots didn't have plenty of other troops headed their way, but by then the Seekers had grabbed all the energon they could safely carry and were off. Wildrider couldn't fly in his condition, but he made it to Breakdown, who relayed him to Motormaster's waiting trailer.

Megatron was pleased – for once, his pet project had performed to the expected standard – and both Wildrider and Breakdown received extra energon rations when they were out of the medical bay. Drag Strip didn't mind that, but it was galling to hear Breakdown repeat the story to Dead End when he came into their common room. Wildrider lived in the present and didn't seem to remember anything he had done in the past, but Breakdown was embellishing the tale for all he was worth.

"Then Wildrider radioed to me that he was going to hit one of the 'bots, make sure they couldn't merge, but the copter was taking pot shots at him and the police car was on the other side of the…"

_It doesn't matter. I'm Menasor's right arm – Wildrider's only a leg – and I'm faster too. Next time it'll be me kicking the Autobots' afterburners, wait and see._

"…revved up and hit two-fifty, so whatever Hot Spot sprayed at him just missed. Then he went straight for the building. I don't think any of the bots could've moved fast enough to stop him--"

"I could have," Drag Strip said.

That got everyone's attention, even Wildrider's, but it didn't last long. Dead End looked away and said, "Go on."

"_I_ could have." Drag Strip sat up a little straighter and glared at Dead End.

"Sure, Dragster," Wildrider said in an indulgent, on-the-verge-of-over-energizing way. He was slouched against one arm of their battered couch, trying to balance an empty energon cube on one finger.

"Of course I could," Drag Strip said, trying and failing to keep the irritation out of his voice. He was the Formula One racer, streamlined and aerodynamic, built for speed and tight turns. More importantly, though, he had a drive to win. Wildrider might be fast and reckless, but he was far too easily distracted.

Dead End sighed. "Get back to the story, Breakdown."

Except Breakdown was looking at Drag Strip in a half-curious and half-evaluating way, his head tilted a little to one side. He's over-energized too, Drag Strip thought, but before he could say that, Breakdown shook his head.

"I'm not so sure you would," he said. "You're faster, sure, but Wildrider does crazy things no one would expect, not even us. That'd give him an edge over--"

"Why don't you two settle it later?" Dead End said. "Have a race or something." Abruptly his tone turned sarcastically cheery. "No, I have a better idea, let's settle it right now. First one to the hangar wins. Go on."

"Ha slagging ha," Drag Strip snapped. He would dearly have liked to hit Dead End, but that could backfire. If Dead End's forcefield was up, he wouldn't be hurt at all. If it wasn't, he might be annoyed enough to hit back, and then Breakdown or Wildrider would probably join in too. A three-on-one fight wasn't Drag Strip's kind of thing, not unless he was on the majority side. "A real race would be on an open road. And I'd win."

Wildrider laughed. "Well, if you want to race that bad, I guess I can make room in my schedule. Okay if I fit you in after Prowl?"

"Fine." None of them seemed to take it seriously, and that irritated him even more.

Dead End sat up in the languid way that always made Drag Strip feel he was watching something played in slow-motion. "So you're actually going to race against each other?" he said, looking from Drag Strip to Wildrider. "Well, that should be… interesting."

_I'm so glad I managed to stop boring you_, Drag Strip thought. "Where?" he said to Wildrider, pointedly ignoring his other two teammates.

"It would have to be an interstate highway," Breakdown said. "You'd attract too much attention in a city."

"I was talking to Wildrider." Drag Strip got up.

The grey Stunticon dropped the cube and brought his feet down hard against the floor, the motion flipping his upper body straight. "Okay, Dragster. I'm fine with a highway chase." There was a dark crazy gleam in his optics, but he was still grinning. "A week from now?"

"Sure," Drag Strip said curtly and stalked out.


	2. Swindle's Involvement

**Chapter 2 : Swindle's Involvement**

Things went downhill from there. Fast.

Drag Strip didn't really _like_ any of his teammates, but if he had to choose one of them to work with, it would have been Wildrider. The grey Ferrari always made a great distraction while Drag Strip did the real work of smashing into some facility or grabbing some weapon component, and Drag Strip's reflexes were quick enough to get him out of the way when his teammate swerved and spun and launched himself off the surface of the road entirely. Wildrider had his faults, sure, but at least he didn't constantly moan about how they were going to die. Or freeze up at the thought that someone might be looking at him.

Except now Drag Strip had no one to drive with or even spend time with off-duty. Wildrider behaved just the same, as if the impending race made no difference at all to him. And it probably didn't, but it made a lot of difference to Drag Strip. The way Drag Strip saw it, competitors were meant to be crushed, humiliated, left in the dust. Even if they were other Stunticons.

So he could hardly hang out with Wildrider as he had done before, and as for Dead End and Breakdown, he wanted to run them over. Why didn't they remember all the fights he had won? Why didn't they talk about him the way they had talked about Wildrider? He stewed over it, alternately resentful and miserable (not that he would ever have admitted that), and kept to himself as much as he could.

The next thing that happened was that all the other Decepticons found out about the race.

Drag Strip had been more or less forced to tell Motormaster about it. After leaving his teammates in the common room, he had gone down to one of the lower levels of the ship and glowered at the fish outside the windows, but that hadn't lasted long. He didn't enjoy being on his own too much. So he had stalked back to the common room, only to find that his teammates had decided that he had the honor of delivering the news of the race to Motormaster.

At that point, Drag Strip decided he had a lot in common with Megatron. Now he too knew what it was like to be stabbed in the back by some trusted inferior. If only he had had a fusion cannon as well.

"Why should I do it?" he said. "Wildrider can go. He's the mech of the moment, after all."

"Oh, well," Dead End drawled, "if you're _afraid_…"

And that was how Drag Strip found himself trudging along the corridor that led to Motormaster's quarters – which were close enough to the other Stunticons' rooms that he could keep an eye on them, but far enough that Motormaster's position of leadership was obvious to everyone. He hated Dead End more every step of the way, but he knew they didn't have a choice; Motormaster would have found out sooner or later. There were no secrets in a gestalt bond.

Motormaster listened, a smile that was mostly sneer spreading across his face slowly. "Send me a map of your route," was all he said. "I'll be waiting at the finish line, 'cause you'll need someone to judge this race."

_Great,_ Drag Strip thought as he left, _the first finish line I won't be entirely happy to speed past._ It was a relief to get that over with, though, and he felt almost better until the next day, when Swindle hailed him with a question about which highway they had picked for the race.

Drag Strip stared at the Combaticon in silence, trying to control the sudden urge to transform and smash into him. He knew better than to ask how Swindle had found out – either Soundwave's many listening devices or Drag Strip's own treacherous teammates. Apparently there were no secrets in the Decepticon base either.

Swindle seemed to take the lack of a reply as caution, and his voice lowered to a just-you-and-me confiding tone. "Hey, you could do very well for yourself out of this. So far everyone's just bet on who they think the winner'll be, but I could offer odds on other outcomes. Say, you leaving Wildrider in no shape to continue by the halfway point. Then, if you did it, we'd split the--"

"Why don't you go sell your teammates again, Swindle?"

If he had hoped that would have any effect, it didn't. "Cause this is more profitable," Swindle replied. It was impossible to see his optics behind the purple visor, but his tone was as cheerful as ever. "Everyone in the base is wagering on the race."

"Wagering on me?" Drag Strip said before he could stop himself.

Swindle's smile looked like a ripple passing over a pool of thick, molten metal. "Why don't you go ask your teammates, Drag Strip?" he said, and walked away. _He already knows the answer to that,_ Drag Strip thought bitterly.

Under any other circumstances, Drag Strip would have loved the idea of the other Decepticons betting on him, might even have entered into Swindle's schemes, confident in his ability to deliver when it came to battle and speed on the open road. Now, though, he found himself dreading the thought of the race. _Even if I win – no, shut up, there's no "if" about it – will it make any difference?_

He went about his daily duties quietly, trying not to be noticed. That was another change, since Drag Strip's normal demeanor was as designed-to-attract-attention as his paintjob, and Rumble, catching him in a cargo hold, made the mistake of taunting him about it.

Drag Strip hit him. He knew that was a mistake too but he didn't care; he needed the relief of a fight and he had been avoiding his teammates for too long. Rumble hadn't been expecting the punch and it pitched him hard into a wall, but he was up again in the next moment, shaking his head as if to clear it. His piledrivers slid out of his arms.

Drag Strip's forcefield was up as well, deflecting the first blow. He transformed, revved his engine and prepared to flatten Rumble… or at least that was the plan before Frenzy's sonic attack slammed into him from behind. The forcefield flickered and went down. Drag Strip swerved out of the way before two pairs of piledrivers could hit him and hurtled out of the cargo hold.

Not that that saved him later, of course. Soundwave would never have passed over an attack on one of his precious midgets, and Drag Strip found himself on punishment duty for the next three days. He had to guard the space bridge (first day), clean the hangar (second day) and check the hull and maintenance systems at a hundred different places (third day). All boring makework duties, intended to keep him as far from other Decepticons as possible in case another fight broke out.

Not that Drag Strip wanted one by then. His paintjob was dulled by the third day, scuffed and smeared with the residues of both battle and punishment, and he felt as dispirited as he looked. Making sure that the manual readouts of the hull integrity and maintenance systems tallied with the automatic scans was solitary, mind-numbing work, and there was nothing to look forward to once it was done.

He cleaned himself off as best he could and trailed back to the Stunticons' common room anyway, having nowhere else to go. The door had been left ajar and he heard voices inside, though it was the sound of his own name that made him stop.

"…worst that will happen is that if Drag Strip wins, he'll be even more insufferable than he already is."

It was Dead End's voice. Drag Strip flattened himself as best he could beside the door, feeling something inside him turn harder and colder than the wall against which he leaned.

"That's why we should keep an eye on things," Breakdown said.

"And do what? Drag Strip will fight dirty whether we're watching or not. So will Wildrider, for that matter."

"Drag Strip's planning something, though. Something undercover – I mean, underhanded." Breakdown's voice took on a familiar note of tense suspicion. "He's been too quiet lately."

"Breakdown, he's quiet because he's sulking. Now, did you get that paint?"

The door to Motormaster's quarters slammed. Drag Strip jumped away from the wall, trying to look as though he had just arrived at the common room, but the footsteps coming closer were not Motormaster's heavy tread. Swindle stepped out of the shadows.

"Do excuse me," he said. "I've got some business with the Stunticons."

The memory of three days' punishment duty for picking a fight was still fresh, so despite the insult Drag Strip stepped out of the jeep's way. Still, he couldn't stop himself from asking, "What were you doing with Motormaster?"

"He wanted to place a bet," Swindle said, pushing the door to the common room open. "On Wildrider." The door closed in Drag Strip's face.


	3. The Combaticons' Discussion

**Chapter 3 : The Combaticons' Discussion**

"More wagers, Swindle?"

"Yep, just saw Motormaster."

"Who'd he bet on?"

"Drag Strip, who else?"

"Which should be obvious - this is a groundbound race, not a popularity contest. I wagered on Drag Strip myself, for that matter."

"Well, don't ever tell him that, Blast-Off. He's already the runaway favorite, which gives me an idea…"

"That whoever puts energon on Wildrider could drain the pool dry, if _he_ wins?"

"Great mechs think alike, Vortex."

"So we gonna pound Drag Strip? Cause that would be fun."

"No. We do not. Whatever you're planning, Swindle, this cannot be traced back to us."

"No worries, boss. I'm thinking some psychological pressure at the start and a few little obstacles along the way later. And in the end, the Stunticon Canary should be in a mess that even Hook won't be able to put back together."

"Now that _would_ be fun. What do you have in mind?"

"Plan A is going to require a little paint, a lot of explosives and one of _these_."

"A photo?"

"Primus, Brawl, look at what's _in_ the picture."

"Oh. Hey, that looks kinda like--"

"Not bad."

"What's Plan B?"

"One at a time, friends! And let me have some well-deserved energon first."


	4. Vortex's Advice

**Chapter 4 : Vortex's Advice**

Drag Strip's only consolation was that the choice of location was up to the Stunticons and the Stunticons alone. No hints from Swindle, no suggestions from anyone else, though he had to make his teammates approve of his choice without his looking weak in the process.

"The race doesn't have to go on until dawn to prove anything," he said, "and the longer we're out there, the more chance of Autobot or human interference there'll be. Especially after that raid. A few hours should do it."

"Any more than that and your engine might overheat?" Dead End said.

Drag Strip felt his fingers curl into fists. "You're next on my slag list."

"Why bother? We're all on a much more comprehensive list, and whoever keeps _that_ one erases every name eventually."

"Just shut up, Dead End. Are the rest of you in agreement with me about the race?"

Breakdown nodded. "The less trouble with Autobots and – and humans, the better."

"Good." Drag Strip finally felt as though something was operating in his favor. "I want the Black Canyon Freeway. The I-17." He'd raced it before and was starting to be confident about winning again.

There was a pause as his teammates called up maps on their nav systems, but once Wildrider shrugged his consent, they agreed as well. Drag Strip had considered something with tighter turns and hairpin bends, perhaps along the side of a cliff where his greater skill and maneuverability would tip the odds in his favor. But it had occurred to him that Wildrider was just crazy enough to do something like leap at him, shoving them both off the side of the road and into a ravine. No, a straight road was better. And it had to be at night, even though Drag Strip would have preferred plenty of light reflecting off his chassis and highlighting his streamlined shape.

"What are the rules?" Breakdown said, so Dead End pointed out that Wildrider tended to forget rules in the heat of the moment and Drag Strip did whatever he could get away with when no one was looking. In the end they decided that anything was permitted and in play except thrusters and lifter units, which meant no flying. Drag Strip was fine with that, though. _Tires to the ground, pedal to the metal, fight to the finish_.

News of the location flew through the Decepticon ranks the night before the race, but to Drag Strip's relief, Motormaster made it clear that spectators weren't welcome. He would be at the end of the race, just past Phoenix, and Dead End would be at the start, outside Flagstaff. The only other Decepticon they could expect to see along the way was Vortex. As a more or less impartial observer, he would be monitoring the race and reporting on developments.

The last day before the race passed almost too quickly. Drag Strip polished his exterior carefully – even if no one would see him, at least it gave him something to do and it always made him feel better. He liked being the brightest and most eye-catching Stunticon, an explosion of molten gold among his teammates' drab or subdued colors. The sun made steel. Fire on the road.

There was a soft cautious tap on his door. Drag Strip put away his jar of polish, wondering who it was – his teammates were never that quiet. He went to the door just as cautiously; he wouldn't put it past a few of the other Decepticons to try to damage him, even though they wouldn't get away with it on the Stunticons' territory.

But it was only Vortex. "Just making sure you're all right," the grey helicopter said, leaning easily against the wall outside. "You've been flying under the radar these past few days."

Drag Strip glanced at the empty corridor, then looked at Vortex through narrowed optics. "What do you want?"

He hadn't really expected that the lack of an enthusiastic response would dissuade Vortex, and he was right. The Combaticon just straightened up and said, as pleasantly as before, "Don't pay any attention to whatever Swindle said to you. He's just annoyed because you brought up that… incident."

"The one where he sold you and the other Combaticons?"

"That's the one." Like Swindle, Vortex didn't sound too fazed by it.

"How do you still work with him?" He couldn't imagine what Motormaster might have done to him if he had ever abandoned his teammates. Whether they hated each other or not – and sometimes there was no "not" about it – the Stunticons stayed together.

Looking puzzled, Vortex stepped into the room. The movement appeared as though he had just taken a pace forward, too deep in thought to realize what he was doing, but Drag Strip would have still ordered him out if the Combaticon hadn't replied, "I don't understand. Why shouldn't we work with him?"

"Why shouldn't you?" Drag Strip forgot about throwing his unwanted guest out. "He sold you for scrap!"

Vortex nodded, pushing the door shut with a casual flick of a rotor. "Which we were at the time, I believe. What, you don't think we would have done the same to him if our positions were reversed?"

"You would have?"

"Of course." Vortex laid a hand on his shoulder. "That's the Decepticon way, Drag Strip. You have to look out for yourself."

Drag Strip didn't know what to say. _I do, but when you're part of a team… _Then he remembered that Vortex was part of one, too.

"That's why you've been so out of things." Vortex gave his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze and then let go. "You've been brooding about what the other Stunticons think about you."

_If they think about me at all._

"Well, forget those losers," Vortex continued. "What do they matter? The main thing is to run away with this race. And I just put three cubes on you, so it's even more important now. You do whatever it takes to win, and if that puts your teammates' circuits in a crosswire, too bad for them."

"Right," Drag Strip muttered.

Vortex nodded. "We're not some melting-spark Autobots," he said, his voice so low it was expressionless and yet oddly compelling at the same time. "We're Decepticon warriors, and we know that only the best survive."

Drag Strip managed a nod. Even if Vortex's speech was meant to cheer him up, it made him feel more alone than the past week had done. _Still, it's always lonely when you're the best,_ he told himself after Vortex had gone. _The top of the podium isn't large enough for five._

According to his internal chronometer, he had to fly soon to make it to Arizona in time, but he decided that the rest of the Stunticons could wait a little longer. He found a buffing pad and began to polish his left arm.

A heavy thump made the door shudder. It shook Drag Strip a little as well, and he knew who it was even before he opened the door.

"What are you still doing here?" Motormaster said sharply.

"I'll get there when I'm ready. The race isn't going to start without me."

A huge hand shot out and closed around the back of Drag Strip's neck, digging painfully into metal. Motormaster didn't even bother replying. He strode down the corridor, hauling the smaller Stunticon along with him.

Drag Strip struggled and thrashed and tore at the vise-like grip, but he simply wasn't as strong as Motormaster. All he did was hurt himself a little more as the thick fingers tightened, and all he could think of was what Soundwave's midgets would say if they saw him. "Let go of me!" he snarled. "Why don't you go play chicken with Op--"

In the next instant his feet were six inches off the floor and he was staring into Motormaster's optics. "Finish that," Motormaster said in a low, vicious hiss. "Go on, you slagging coward, finish what you were saying and see what happens."

Drag Strip felt as if all his internal circuitry had suddenly disappeared, leaving him hollow and utterly unable to move. He said nothing, only hung paralyzed in Motormaster's grip for an unending moment before the fingers on his neck loosened and dropped him. With a shaky effort, he got up, and when Motormaster strode towards the hangar he followed in silence.

The flight to Arizona was equally silent, except for the wind rushing past Drag Strip and the murmur of the ocean beneath. Then Motormaster took off in another direction by the time they were passing over the land, traveling the shortest distance to the finish line. Drag Strip continued alone to the starting point just south of Flagstaff.

The solitary flight helped a little. Drag Strip's self-repair system dealt with the dents in his neck and he tried to recapture his old mindset and determination. There was a race ahead of him, and if he had to run over Megatron himself to win, he'd do so. _And_ enjoy it. He wasn't just some Stunticon grunt and he wasn't just Menasor's arm – he was Drag Strip, faster on the road than anything ever created, and tonight they were all going to see just how good he was.

He cut power to his thrusters and touched down. Dead End was standing at the side of the highway, arms folded and fingers tapping against dark-red metal. Wildrider was already on the road, headlights off, engine rumbling. No sign of Breakdown, but when Drag Strip did a quick scan of the surroundings Vortex popped up on his radar, far enough down the I-17 that he wasn't even visible against the night.

Drag Strip transformed and rolled into position beside Wildrider. The tension was fluid-thick, and no one spoke. He was starting to think that he would take off anyway when Dead End unfolded his arms and said, "Well, now that you're here, I suppose we might as well begin. The race starts here and ends when you get to Motormaster – if you reach the I-10, you'll have gone too far."

"Don't worry," Drag Strip radioed to Wildrider. "You won't get _that_ far at all."

Wildrider laughed. "You're funny when you try to be scary."

"Ready?" Dead End said, sounding terminally bored. He raised a fist and pointed his index finger up. "Bang."

The kick of it hit Drag Strip harder and sweeter than a gulp of the best energon. His engine roared and he zoomed forward in a spray of dust. The race was on.


	5. Wildrider's Tactics

**Chapter 5 : Wildrider's Tactics**

Before they had gone ten miles, Wildrider tried to run him off the road.

Drag Strip wasn't surprised, since Wildrider _always_ tried to run other mechs or vehicles off the road. They were racing neck-and-neck, so Wildrider couldn't use his forward-mounted guns. He jinked instead, a tight swerve that would have slammed another car into a flip.

Since Drag Strip was another Stunticon, it sent crackles of static washing over both of them as one forcefield countered the other. The momentum rocked him a little to one side, though. He recovered at once, but realized suddenly that Wildrider had an advantage – greater mass. The forcefield protected Drag Strip from damage but didn't absorb every bit of kinetic energy directed at him.

And for all his lunacy, Wildrider wasn't stupid. He seemed to guess that as well, and the next swerve was a powerful lunge that brought him shouldering into Drag Strip at full speed. Drag Strip braked frantically, diverting power into his weapons systems as he did so. Wildrider's left front wheel just missed his turning vane, and Drag Strip fired.

His guns punched a smoking crater into the road just beneath Wildrider's transmission, but the Ferrari slammed the brakes on his front wheels, twisting to one side as he did so. His inertia drove his rear wheels forward. He spun so violently that for a moment he was perpendicular to the road, horizontal across the lanes, revolving around the fissure beneath him. Drag Strip skidded away on three tires just in time to avoid crashing into him. Snapping off a few shots of his own, Wildrider rolled away from the crater and turned in the correct direction.

"That was fun!" he yelled before accelerating away.

Drag Strip thudded back down on all six tires and continued, though not at the same speed. A quick diagnostic showed that one of those shots had hit him, though his forcefield had negated it, and his engine wasn't near overheating just yet. He knew, though, that he didn't want to get into another such fight – not unless he had some advantage, anyway.

He had never before felt like that but then, he had never before _really_ fought another Stunticon. The punches they threw to relieve tension or establish a pecking order were nothing compared to the struggle he had just gone through. And even that wasn't much compared to what Wildrider was capable of when he was actually trying to kill someone.

He drove on. It didn't matter that Wildrider was ahead; there were still a hundred and seventy miles to go, and he could easily catch up to the grey Ferrari. _If it comes to that, I can hit three hundred mph and overtake the crazy turborat in the last stretch… if I have some way to take him out for good_. Far above him he heard the chatter of rotors and realized that Vortex had seen the whole thing.

_It doesn't matter. Just keep going_.

He increased his speed a little, to lose the helicopter. For the first time he was glad it was dark; there were almost no other vehicles on the freeway and miles of empty ground fell away behind him as easily as raindrops sliding off his chassis. He still had to deal with Wildrider somehow, though. _Even if I empty my guns on him, his forcefield might still hold. Leading him into a trap would be better, but how to set one up?_

An orange glow on the horizon caught his attention, just right of the freeway, where the level land dropped off into a slope. Still trying to think of what to do about Wildrider, Drag Strip sped past, glancing absently to the right as he did so.

He braked hard and came to a shrieking stop with the stench of smoking rubber in his olfactory sensors. Then he transformed and hurried to the edge of the freeway, beside the mangled guardrail and the gaping rent in it.

Beyond it, at the bottom of the slope, a grey Ferrari lay on its side. Flames licked greedily at its undercarriage and tires, splashing hot light over the Decepticon emblem on its hood, crawling closer and closer to its gas tank.

* * *

**Taipan Kiryu** : Glad you like the story! Dead End's my favorite Stunticon too. I would never have thought of writing about Drag Strip, because he seemed to get the least screen time in the cartoon and his tech specs only said he was obsessed with winning and obnoxious because of it.

Then I read a fanfic by Dragoness Eclectic which said that he was only like that because he didn't have any self-confidence and needed outside validation that he was worth something. Okay, dysfunctional _and_ two-dimensional! :) I had my story.

**tomorrow4eva** : Thanks for the reviews! The "pre-schoolers with guns and engines" line made me laugh. That's exactly what they are. Not surprising that Motormaster is a violent bully; that probably seems like the easiest way to control Drag Strip's infantile attitude (and Wildrider's craziness, for that matter).


	6. Dead End's Suggestion

**Chapter 6 : Dead End's Suggestion**

Drag Strip froze, his optics fixed on the burning car. He wasn't afraid of fire or accidents, but half of his mind was shrieking at him to keep going, to continue the race. The other half yelled, just as loudly, that this was an Autobot ambush. Wildrider simply wouldn't have been caught by anything less.

The flames had nearly reached the Ferrari's gas tank. Drag Strip hated the fossil fuels humans used and preferred to run on pure energon, but Wildrider wasn't so discriminating – he would drink anything. _Did he fill up on gas before we started out? Whether he did or not, he's going to be badly damaged soon. No, he _is_ badly damaged. He'd have transformed or sent out a distress call otherwise._

Drag Strip stared around, but there was no sign of any Autobots lying in wait. The flames crackled and trailed black smoke, but their light didn't pick out any robot prints or tank-treads on the ground below.

_Just keep going. Radio Dead End with the coordinates and let _him _deal with it. Win the race. _

_No, wait, if Wildrider's in stasis lock I've won by default. Walk away, then? I'd never have anyone praising him to me again, and only the best survive, anyway. If Wildrider can't take care of himself, it's not _my_ problem, and he deserves it for trying to shove me off the road anyway._

_But he's a Stunticon too_. _We're part of the same team. And…_

"…and I'm not Swindle," Drag Strip said aloud, then plunged down the slope. Pebbles and dry earth poured away under his feet and he slipped and slid, gyro stabilizers struggling to keep him upright. He hit the bottom of the slope in a cloud of dust and activated his radio.

"Dead End, Wildrider's been hurt!" he said as he ran to the Ferrari's side. "Bad. Someone's ambushed him and set him on fire. Looks like he didn't even have time to transform first."

"Inevitable, really," Dead End said. "Suicide to attack a Stunticon head-on, so they waylay him instead--"

"Shut up and do a scan!" Drag Strip scooped up a double handful of earth and flung it on the flames, not knowing what else to do. The air was thick with burning rubber, gasoline – _gasoline? The fire can't have reached his gas tank already!_ – and a faint sharp smell that he couldn't identify.

"I suppose you'll be next, Drag Strip." Dead End actually sounded unhappy about that possibility, but then again, Dead End sounded unhappy about everything. "I thought the Stunticons would die together, for some reason, but apparently we'll succumb one by one, alone as well as doomed--"

"Do. A. Scan. _Now_." Drag Strip decided that he and Megatron had another thing in common – they both had morons on their teams. He doused the fires closest to the gas tank and started to work on the rest. "Whoever did this has to be close, and you have the combat radar. Do a fragging scan!"

"Hmm," Dead End said after a moment. "There's no one, Autobots or Decepticons, near you except for Vortex. Extending the sweep north, there's Breakdown keeping an eye out for trouble. Checking the south…" There was a moment's pause. "…Wildrider is heading south on the freeway."

"What?"

"Drag Strip," Dead End said, and for the first time that night he sounded neither depressed nor bored. "I suggest you get out of there. Now."

The Ferrari exploded.


	7. Breakdown's Plan B

**Chapter 7 : Breakdown's Plan B**

If Drag Strip had not had the quickest reflexes of any of the Stunticons, he would have been deactivated by the blast, or at least gone into stasis lock. Instead, he turned the moment he heard the change in Dead End's voice, though he didn't run very far before the explosion hit him like Menasor's fist.

He sprawled face-down in the dirt. At first all he felt was shock as his sensors and stabilizers rebooted, but in the next moment they came back online and he gasped. Shrapnel was embedded in his back and legs. Drops of burning gasoline and melted rubber spattered his armor.

Drag Strip managed to lever himself up on his elbows, then ran another diagnostic. The shrapnel had missed his joints, thankfully, so he could still transform, but his forcefield had taken the worst of the explosion and was down completely. His self-repair systems would take at least a few hours to fix that.

His radio crackled. "Drag Strip? Are you dead?"

"Yes. I'm talking to you from the afterlife and it's much worse here."

"How amusing," Dead End said. "Though I doubt that existence could be worse than this one. But to return to the point, Wildrider is very much active, so it appears you were tricked in some way. A hologram, perhaps?"

A jolt of anger sent Drag Strip to his feet despite his injuries. "What d'you think I am, stupid? This was real!" Illusory flames didn't register on the olfactory receptors, didn't vanish when handfuls of earth hit them.

"Well, then, it was a real car decked out to look like Wildrider. What a waste of a Ferrari."

Drag Strip turned to look at the burning remains that were no longer even remotely recognizable as a car. He would dearly have liked to kick the wreckage anyway, but it was too hot to approach and he had to settle for climbing back up the slope. "Did you know about this?" he said.

"No."

"Oh, really?" Drag Strip suddenly remembered what he had overheard, days ago. "You're lying. Someone painted a Decepticon symbol on that car, and I heard you mention paint to Breakdown."

"That was…" Dead End sighed. "We intended it for something else, and why in the world would we ambush you?"

Drag Strip had reached the freeway again and transformed, ignoring the pain as he did so. An eighteen-wheeler sped past but the driver only gawked at him. "You didn't want me to win, did you?" he said as he tore off down the freeway, overtaking the huge truck.

There was a pause. "You're not exactly easy to live with if you accomplish anything--"

"_If?_"

"--but do you really think that means we want you dead?"

Drag Strip said nothing. As far as he was concerned, he had nearly been deactivated because of one simple reason – he had been thinking of someone else rather than himself, of his team rather than of his own purpose. He'd been soft and sentimental and had paid a price for it. Well, he wouldn't make that mistake again, and he would win the slagging race if he had to shove all the other Stunticons into a very large smelter for it.

"How far am I from Wildrider?" he said.

"About eighty miles," Dead End said. Drag Strip felt as if he had swallowed lead. "He's run into a roadblock, though. The Autobots know we're here."

_To the Pit with overheating._ Drag Strip accelerated and watched as his speed went past two hundred.

The world turned to a blur, and the wind rushing past him was a whip that spurred him faster. As he neared maximum velocity, even the grip of his wheels on the road felt different – he wasn't driving on a hard surface, he was skimming over something that had less friction than black water.

The road flowed fluid under him and the trucks on the freeway stood still. Drag Strip had forgotten about the joy of racing in the grim obsession of this one race, had forgotten the way time itself seemed to stop so that only he was moving. _I could chase lightning and catch it at moments like these. _

"It was probably Swindle," Dead End said after a while.

"Swindle? He decked that car out like Wildrider?"

"Of course, which means--" The radio crackled with static and went silent.

"Dead End?" Drag Strip said sharply. He tried the Stunticons' backup channel, which didn't work either. Had something happened to Dead End?

The leaden feeling spread through him again. The Autobots knew the Stunticons were back – and stretched out across the length of the I-17, where they could be picked off one by one. _No, stop! That was Dead End's morbid imagination, not mine. _Swindle was more of a danger to him right now than the Autobots, and if Swindle was involved in some dirty trick, that meant…

Drag Strip didn't need to look up to see the helicopter above him, and he didn't need to hear Vortex's laughter on the blocked channels to know what the Combaticon had done. He would dearly have liked to use his gravito-gun on the helicopter and watch it crash, but he couldn't afford to waste any more time.

Speed had never made a difference to Drag Strip's awareness of the terrain around him and any potential obstacles. The faster he went, the more honed his sensors were, and he saw the two black arches of a tunnel far ahead, cut into the side of a cliff – and the sign which blocked the left one. He hit the brakes and screeched to a halt.

_Construction In Progress_, the sign said.

Drag Strip's own radar was nowhere near as sensitive or long-range as Dead End's, but he scanned the area. There was nothing in either the blocked-off tunnel or the other.

_They want me to go through the one that isn't blocked_, he thought as he reversed, rolling backward. _When in doubt, speed up_. He streaked forward so fast that he splintered the sign into three pieces, and they flew spinning away as he plunged into the left tunnel.

"Activate the electromagnet!" Vortex yelled.

_Electro--?_

Something picked Drag Strip up and slammed him sideways. The impact drove bits of torn metal deep into his armor and he cried out. From hood to spoiler he was pinned to the tunnel's wall by a magnetic field so strong that it held him as immobile as a fly in amber, except for his wheels churning uselessly.

Drag Strip tried to transform, but the effort only made him shudder in pain. His radio still didn't work, either. Through a thin layer of concrete he felt power thrum through the magnet's hidden coils.

The _chop-chop-chop_ of rotors grew a little louder and Drag Strip felt warm air wash over him. For a moment he thought Vortex would fire at him, burying him alive in the tunnel, but the Combaticon only shouted, "You're so predictable, Drag Strip," over the roar of engines, and took off again, laughing.

Drag Strip longed to fire on the helicopter, but he couldn't angle his guns correctly when he couldn't even move. He looked around as best he could, trying to find some way out of the second trap the Combaticons had laid for him, and saw a car zooming down the freeway towards him.

It was still nearly a mile away, but Drag Strip knew at once that it wasn't one of the Stunticons. A silver Datsun – that was the Autobot gunner Bluestreak, coming in fast.

Then another car peeled out from a side road and raced to keep up. A yellow Lamborghini – that was…

Drag Strip struggled wildly, but nothing happened. If he had to die, he wanted to go down fighting, not all-but-welded to a tunnel wall while Sunstreaker finished him off – and he knew that Autobot's reputation. Others might refrain from murdering a Decepticon who couldn't fight back. Sunstreaker wouldn't.

The two Autobots reached the tunnel, Bluestreak in the lead. He transformed just outside, whipped a rifle out of subspace and pointed it at Drag Strip. "All right, come out from there with your--"

The yellow Lamborghini opened fire. Drag Strip flinched, but the shots hit Bluestreak, knocking the rifle out of his hands and sending him reeling to one side. He vanished over the side of the guardrail as the yellow car braked to a halt and transformed.

"Drag Strip, what happened to you?" it said.

"Breakdown?" Drag Strip shook off his shock just in time. "Don't come in here!" Breakdown leaped back as if he had been shot at too. "It's magnetized!"

"Oh." Breakdown's own rifle was in his hands at once. He aimed at the tunnel's roof and fired twice. Drag Strip felt the power flicker out, and he hit the ground, bouncing slightly on his tires. Breakdown stowed the rifle and transformed again.

Even the knowledge that Wildrider now had an almost insurmountable lead didn't pull Drag Strip down that time; he was too taken aback by the Lamborghini's appearance. "You… you painted yourself to look like…" He remembered that Breakdown didn't like being stared at, even by his teammates, and turned away.

"I overheard Swindle talk to one of his human contacts about buying paint and I thought of this," Breakdown said as he rolled forward through the tunnel. "Only good thing about being Sunstreaker is that if he doesn't feel like talking, the Autobots don't try to make him – and they don't look at him much either. I figured it would be easier to keep an eye on everything that way."

"Serves the Autoblots right, too," Drag Strip said. "For – you know."

"I know. Come on, let's go."

"You're coming with me?"

"Might as well. I don't – hey, watch it!" The last exclamation was as Drag Strip twisted past him and pulled out in front, where he was supposed to be. Wheels spun and engine revved. Drag Strip was in the race again.

* * *

**Taipan Kiryu** : Appreciate the reviews. :) You're right about the importance of _some_ sort of friendship within the team. Plus, for all his faults, Motormaster is extremely loyal to Megatron and to the Decepticon cause, so it makes sense to me that he'd demand the same loyalty from his subordinates and expect it to apply to the team as a whole as well.

And the Stunticons always struck me as the kind who'd knock each other around both verbally and physically, but would close ranks at once to counter any outside threat.

Oh, and that little shoving session on the road? _Nothing_ compared to what Wildrider's going to do later. Stay tuned.

**tomorrow4eva** : Thanks for the feedback! Don't worry, the next chapter is _huge_. Considering who's in its title, that seems appropriate.


	8. Motormaster's Verdict

**Chapter 8 : Motormaster's Verdict**

"Roadblock up ahead," Drag Strip radioed.

At least his radio was working again. As soon as Vortex had realized who the yellow Lamborghini was, he had prudently climbed as high as possible in case his engines failed, which also put his jamming equipment out of range. He was still keeping pace with them, though, and Drag Strip made a mental note to kill him later.

"Autobots and humans," Breakdown replied. "And they have--"

"Spikes." Drag Strip could see the faint multiple glitter in the distance when the flashing lights of police cars reflected off them. His forcefield was still offline, which meant a single shot could take out one of his tires. There were damaged vehicles to one side of the road, still smoking from what he guessed were Wildrider's guns, but the roadblock might as well have been a solid wall of steel. He couldn't get through it.

"Go first!" he shouted to Breakdown, and fired at the spike strips. Breakdown pulled out before him but hissed in fear over the comm link.

"There's so many of them," he said, "staring at me--"

Threatening him never did any good under those circumstances, not unless the one doing the threatening was Motormaster. "Close your optics," Drag Strip said desperately. "Just close them. Now!"

The Autobots seemed to realize at the last minute that the yellow Lamborghini wasn't Sunstreaker, but it was too late. Breakdown zoomed over what remained of the spike strips and hit the roadblock at two hundred miles an hour, laserfire spattering off his forcefield. Cars crumpled like paper, rocking aside from the impact.

There was no confusion about who the other yellow car was, though. Drag Strip saw a missile streak towards him and twisted aside, braking so hard that he went into a hundred-and-eighty-degree spin. He ended up facing away from the roadblock. The missile hit the road to his left and exploded, driving chunks of asphalt into his armor. The heat was so great that what was left of his paintjob on that side blistered and darkened.

But as long as his tires were intact, Drag Strip was still moving (and if they weren't, he'd drive on the rims). He threw his transmission into reverse and shot through the gap in the roadblock. Breakdown fired at the Autobots from the other side, distracting them just long enough for Drag Strip to turn and hit the accelerator again, though a new warning flashed in his diagnostic queue. His thrusters had joined his forcefield in offline status.

Still, he and Breakdown were past the roadblock thanks to his quick thinking, and he was pleased about that. Being the fastest was something he took for granted, but being smart enough to save one of his teammates was new. _And it would be nice to have_ someone _compliment me for a change._ "Closing your optics was a clever idea, wasn't it?" he said over the radio.

"No, it was _dumb_," Breakdown said. "When my optics are closed, how can I see who's watching me or firing on me?"

Drag Strip growled under his breath. "Well, at least it made you brave enough to get through that roadblock."

"It didn't. It just made me so petrificated that I couldn't change course."

"Then it did the job," Drag Strip snapped. "How far is Wildrider now?"

"Thirty miles away, in Phoenix." Breakdown sounded worried. "He's playing tag with the police, though, and the Autobots are closing in."

_That's Wildrider for you_, Drag Strip thought with some satisfaction. That was why he had asked for the race to extend just past Phoenix – he had known Wildrider would never be able to simply drive through a city without stopping for a little demolition derby. _If not for the slagging Combaticons, I could have cruised at the slagging _speed limit_ and driven past him once he was distracted._

But now the idiot had managed to attract Autobot attention. _Well, I might still get out of this with my tires on their axles._ The Aerialbots were worse than useless in a city, so Drag Strip only had ground troops to deal with. He wasn't sure how he would handle them without a forcefield, though, and he could feel both energon and lubricant trickling from some of his injuries.

The end of the race was so close, though – he couldn't stop now. "Split and try to draw them off," he said to Breakdown.

The empty ground had given way to the city's outskirts. Gas stations and billboards and neon signs flashed past them, and Breakdown peeled off, racing down an exit ramp. Immediately Vortex dipped, reducing altitude to track Drag Strip through the city.

Drag Strip was growing tired, but he ignored that and tried not to pay attention to the warnings flashing in his peripheral vision. _Have to win, have to win_. Armor at less than half efficiency. _Have to win, have to win_. Weapons offline. _When did _that _happen? Have to win_. Energon level low, refueling required in… _Oh, what the slag does it matter? I have to win. Somehow. _He wondered which would be worse, dying or losing.

_Losing_, he decided. After coming so far, struggling through Combaticon traps and an Autobot roadblock, he didn't think he could bear the humiliation of losing. _At least after you die, you don't know whether anyone's laughing at you or not._

There were more cars on the freeway now, even though it was still dark. Drag Strip forced himself to concentrate as he weaved in and out of the traffic – if he slammed into any vehicle that would be the end. At a speed of a hundred and fifty, his own momentum would smash him into scrap.

He rocketed up on to an overpass, trying to watch everything ahead of and behind him, on either side, above (Vortex) and in the distance as well (Wildrider, somewhere). It wasn't too surprising, therefore, that he missed the Autobots at first.

A station wagon ahead swerved trying to avoid him and struck the side of the overpass. Drag Strip shot past it, too preoccupied to even think of some insult about over-large vehicles with no maneuverability and less grace, and saw the police car driving up the overpass towards him, siren blaring. That alone would not have stopped him, but the car's headlights were at full intensity and he saw the red Autobot symbol on its hood.

He spun into a bootlegger reverse, narrowly missing the station wagon, and turned to flee. That was when the blocky, bulky red van roared on to the other side of the overpass, cutting him off. Drag Strip braked sharply and all the remaining energon seemed to drain out of him in a rush. How was he supposed to fight both Prowl and Ironhide?

He transformed and leaned over the side of the overpass, but there were humans lying in wait below, hiding behind a police van. They fired at him and Drag Strip jerked back, snarling at the fresh pinpricks of pain. That one glance was enough, though – he knew he was thirty feet above the ground, and if he injured himself any more in leaping off…

The Autobots thundered up both sides of the overpass. Drag Strip pulled his gravito-gun out of subspace, thumbed it to the lowest setting, pointed up and fired.

The blast hit the helicopter a hundred feet above him. Vortex's gravity instantly tripled, and he dropped out of the sky with a howl, rotors fighting and losing every inch of the way. For a moment Drag Strip thought he had miscalculated and that the helicopter would land on him, but Vortex recovered when he was less than forty feet off the ground. He jerked and bobbed in mid-air, then started to reel away.

Drag Strip put the hilt of his gun between his jaws, leaped up on to the guardrail and launched himself off into the air. His hands closed around Vortex's struts just as Ironhide drove over the spot where he had been standing a moment earlier. The Autobots transformed at once, drawing their own weapons, but Vortex was already weaving to miss any shots aimed at _him_, ducking behind the nearest available building and carrying Drag Strip along with him.

_Any moment now_, Drag Strip thought. _Here it comes._

Vortex climbed rapidly, rotors humming. A hundred feet off the ground, two hundred, three – then his flight leveled off and he shot towards the nearest high-rise. In the wide blue windows just beneath the high-rise's roof, Drag Strip caught a glimpse of himself – a battered, nearly unrecognizable shape clinging to the helicopter – and his reflection loomed closer and closer as Vortex's speed increased. At that velocity and angle, the edge of the roof would have slammed into Drag Strip's midsection, folding him over and tearing him free of Vortex.

Drag Strip brought his legs up just in time. His feet struck the roof's edge and he used that leverage to kick upwards with all his strength. One foot hooked over the helicopter's struts as well and with an effort that made his already strained servos whine dangerously, he got his other foot locked in position as well.

"Let go of me!" Vortex shouted.

Now he could release one hand from a grip so tight his sensors had gone numb. Drag Strip pulled his gun free and jammed it hard against the helicopter's undercarriage. The rotors were spinning too hard for him to talk normally, so he pinged Vortex on the radio instead.

"Turn south-west and follow the freeway, or I'll fire!" he said.

"You wouldn't! You'll die too!"

"Better than losing." Drag Strip ground the gun's muzzle as viciously as he could into the smooth grey metal. "This is at its highest setting now, Vortex. You'll hit the ground like a meteor but at least it'll be over fast. 'Course, Swindle won't get much for you this time--"

"You can't do this!" Vortex's actual voice rose to a drilling shriek that he no doubt hoped would carry all the way to Motormaster's audials. "It's _cheating_!"

That just about did it. "No slag!" Drag Strip screamed back. "And if I were some melting-spark Autobot, I might care! Now you have till the count of three to _turn_! Thr--"

"No, don't shoot!" Vortex turned, rotors spinning wildly; if he had not been so high above the streets, cars would have been caught up in the wind funnel. "I'll get you there, you miserable glitch-ridden--"

"Don't forget _predictable_." Drag Strip kept the gun where it was but glanced back over his shoulder. _Slag, the ground's a long way off._ Still, that was a good thing – the humans' weapons weren't accurate at that distance and the Autobots had fallen behind.

Vortex soared just above the buildings and began to follow the line of the freeway, covering ground rapidly. Even in the near-darkness and at that distance the I-17 was easy to make out. The traffic along it flashed red and white lights – _like stars and optics_, Drag Strip thought as he let himself relax a little. At that height, only the Aerialbots could have reached him, and as long as he clung to Vortex he was safe from…

Something made him look back. Not down, at the city milling in disarray beneath Vortex, but at the buildings behind them. His audials were way ahead of his optics, though, picking up the growl of an engine and the pounding beat of hard rock that drowned out the sounds of sirens from below.

A dark shape raced across the top of a nearby building towards him.

In the past, one or two other Decepticons had asked why Wildrider's specialty was terrorism. After all, Wildrider could never be quiet or subtle; he plowed happily through walls and played music at a decibel level that made the ground vibrate. "He seems to be more of a simple thug," Hook had said.

_Nah, that would be Motormaster_, Drag Strip had thought. What the other Decepticons didn't realize – because they'd never taken Wildrider on in a fight – was that Wildrider never worried about his own safety, so he would find a way to plunge into any situation and take on any enemy.

And no matter how secure that enemy thought it was, Wildrider would prove it wrong. If he couldn't smash through a wall, he'd hit the roof or break into the basement. As Dead End put it, they would have called that "thinking outside the box", except it was difficult to fit "Wildrider" and "thinking" into the same sentence.

Even without taking his complete insanity into account, that kind of approach could terrorize anyone, and Drag Strip was no exception. He let out a strangled yell as Wildrider closed the distance between them, knocking over a television aerial in the middle of the roof.

"Yeee-haaaa!" Wildrider's guns fired, narrowly missing Vortex's rotors. "Two for the price of one!"

Vortex increased altitude at once, shrieking insults that had absolutely no effect. Wildrider revved his engine and roared forward, and for a moment Drag Strip thought (and hoped) he would simply fall off the building. Instead he deliberately hit a ventilation unit on the roof, flipped through the air and struck the top of an even taller high-rise thirty feet away, tires scrabbling for purchase. He drove forward, then spun around and hurtled off the roof like a bolt of dark lightning.

_We're going to die,_ Drag Strip thought numbly.

One ton of laughing grey metal and red glass flew at Vortex.

Drag Strip felt his finger tighten on the gravito-gun's trigger of its own accord. Vortex's gravity increased instantly and he plummeted. Wildrider sailed over the helicopter's rotors, landed on another rooftop and swiveled easily as Vortex, fifty feet off the ground, struggled to recover.

"Shoot him!" Vortex screamed.

Without thinking, Drag Strip took his gun away from Vortex's undercarriage and aimed it at Wildrider. Immediately Vortex spun in a way that sent Drag Strip's gyros into a dizzying scramble. His grip loosened and he fell to street level, smashing through a colorful canopy and whatever was beneath it, which turned out to be a large wooden structure covered with soft organic products that burst and pulped under his weight.

"Predictable _and_ stupid!" Vortex shouted, then flew off at top speed.

Drag Strip picked himself up shakily. All around, humans ran from the ruined storefront, except for one who whipped out a camera that began to flash. For a moment even that insolence didn't register, and then Drag Strip looked down at his battered bodywork. Any remaining trace of brilliant yellow had disappeared, replaced by a thick slime of red and green pulp.

_I_… _I look like a _freak_, and that stinking creature is taking _pictures_--_

He lunged towards the human, who squeaked and backpedaled rapidly. Drag Strip would have caught it anyway if Wildrider had not hit the ground twenty yards away, smashing into a parking lot. Pieces of cars flew through the air in a huge cloud of dust. The crash was so loud that Drag Strip's audials rang, but he knew better than to hope it would have stopped Wildrider.

He stowed his gun and transformed, wincing, just as gunfire in the parking lot blew wreckage out of the grey Ferrari's way. Suddenly he knew how humans and Autobots alike felt when they were on a road ahead of Wildrider – it was like trying to stand before a force of nature, a hurricane. You either smashed the storm with superior force or ran from it.

His radio crackled. "This is the best race ever!" Wildrider yelled at the top of his voice, to be heard over the music and shouts and sirens. "And you falling into that fruit stall was--"

"Shut it, just shut it!" Drag Strip shot off, trying desperately to stay ahead of the other Stunticon while not hitting anything else. He fled down the road, skidded around a corner and took the access road that paralleled the freeway. _Thank Primus - no Autobots and no roadblocks_. Drag Strip didn't think he could have taken on even a human in his condition; more warnings flashed in his diagnostic queue as he rocketed up on to the ramp with Wildrider in hot pursuit.

Forcefield offline. Weapons offline. Navigation system offline. Armor at less than 25% efficiency. Engine temperature increasing. Tire pressure at critical. _I can't help that I had to brake so often! _

He dodged past an ambulance wailing in the same direction and nearly clipped the side of a sedan as he threw the last of his strength into the last stretch of the freeway. At least he was outside the Phoenix city limits now, so the end of the race was nearly in sight._ Just ten or fifteen miles more. Twenty, max._ At any other time that would have been a laughable nothing. _Just twenty miles more and it's over._

Wildrider fired at him. It was a casual, throwaway shot not intended to do more than announce Wildrider's presence and annoy the opposition, but with no defenses at all on Drag Strip's part, the laserbolt turned his rear diffuser to twisted scrap. He bit back a scream and increased his speed to nearly three hundred miles an hour, trying not to think of what would happen if a tire blew. Air pounded through his intakes.

"Hey, is your forcefield down?" Wildrider said on the radio, and then answered his own question by firing again. This time the shot blew half of Drag Strip's spoiler into melting fragments, and he _did_ scream.

"You fragging maniac--"

"Aw, look on the bright side!" Wildrider said, switching his headlights on – _the better to target me with_, Drag Strip thought bitterly. Despite his superior speed, the Ferrari was steadily closing the distance between them. "Mine's gone too – finally blew it when I hit the road – so you can fire back. Or wait, are your weapons down as well?"

Drag Strip couldn't answer, because the headlights picked out the yellow Autobot (not Sunstreaker, thankfully) who stood on the hard shoulder of the freeway just ahead, rifle aimed at them. He thought the Autobot might well have fired, except that more shots snapped out from behind and the remaining half of his spoiler flew through the air. The Autobot gaped, open-mouthed, and Drag Strip hurtled past him.

He couldn't even scream that time. His spoiler was – had been – as much a part of his body as his wheels, and all his pain sensors seemed to be firing at once. Static flickered across his vision. Wildrider fired again, the shot mercifully tearing through the armor on Drag Strip's side rather than blowing up his engine.

_He's going to kill me_, Drag Strip thought dimly.

"I'm going to kill you," he managed to say.

"Go ahead and try, sunshine! Tires next!"

_No, not my tires!_ Drag Strip raced past a billboard that was as broken as he felt, weaving desperately as he fled, as Wildrider's guns spat white heat again and again. Although the shots missed Drag Strip's tires thanks to his makeshift evasive maneuvers, they rarely missed the rest of him. They scorched holes in his armor and shattered one of his sidepods, and since he was zigzagging from side to side, he was losing ground – not to mention fuel that leaked from open wounds. His energon levels were in the red now. He was running on sheer terror and the last of his determination.

A USPS truck loomed up ahead and Drag Strip sped up, dodged before it and dropped to its other side – he would gladly have put anything between him and Wildrider at that moment. There was a momentary pause in the battle, and he saw huge scorch marks cutting dark swathes through the dry ground on either side of the freeway. Another billboard was burning nearby, and the firelight fell on a police motorcycle that was crumpled into scrap.

"I'll show you how to go postal!" Wildrider said, laughing, and the truck lurched off the freeway. Drag Strip didn't even look behind to see it tip over on to its side, because there was a large flashing sign just ahead in the shape of an arrow, pointing to an exit. The few trucks still on the road ahead of him were changing lanes, heading for the detour. An immense tanker with an _Explosives 1.1D_ transportation placard did the same.

_Why are they trying to get off the… oh_. The light of the burning billboard was enough for him to see Motormaster standing on the freeway about half a mile away. Drag Strip had never thought he could feel so much relief at the sight of the Stunticon leader, but in the next moment he knew something was wrong. Why was Motormaster simply standing there motionless despite all the signs that they were driving through a battlefield?

The tanker slowed down to take the exit, which put it on Drag Strip's right. Wildrider shot at him again. The lasers missed, and Drag Strip slewed hard to the right.

If he had still had his spoiler, he would have been trapped against the tanker's side. Without the spoiler, though, he was low enough to slide under the huge cylinder of the tank. Wildrider yelled incoherently and fired at full force for the last time.

The lasers burst both of Drag Strip's rear tires and three of the tanker's front ones. Drag Strip cried out – not so much from agony as from the knowledge that he could go no further. He careened helplessly out from under the other side of the giant cylinder, rolling on rubber shreds, as the tanker shuddered on its own ruined tires and tried to turn.

_Too late_, Drag Strip thought. The body of the tanker plowed forward at the same speed while its cab slowed down, and when it did turn, it did so too fast. The cylinder might still have stayed upright if Wildrider hadn't slammed into its tires from behind.

Drag Strip rolled out of the way on his rims as the tanker rocked, its center of gravity unbalanced. He knew he was moving as if through sludge, but everything else seemed to take place in slow-motion as well. Ponderously, the tanker tilted and crashed down to the surface of the road. The force of its fall crunched its own metal and jarred through Drag Strip's aching frame.

But Motormaster's figure, just over ten yards away from them, didn't move or react. Drag Strip sagged down on his remaining tires. _It's another trap, this isn't over… _

He transformed and put a hand on the back of the tanker for support, so exhausted that he could barely move. The tanker itself had fallen at a sharp angle across the freeway, blocking all the lanes, and it was so large that he couldn't see Wildrider on its other side, but there was an odd gurgling sound coming from it and a sharp stink in the air.

Time suddenly sped up and everything seemed to happen at once then.

Wildrider's engine snarled as he revved up and leaped on the fallen tanker. He raced along the cylinder's length and bounced off the cab, tires just missing the driver who was weakly struggling out--

An Autobot shouted a warning and a green jeep appeared out of nowhere from ahead, streaking towards the cab. _Hound_, Drag Strip thought, _which means--_

Wildrider soared forty feet through the air towards Motormaster just as the hologram flickered--

Hound transformed, grabbed the injured human and drove away--

The hologram of Motormaster vanished entirely, revealing a gaping trench in the road. Wildrider tried to twist in mid-air but he was going too fast and he plunged into the trench hood-first. Metal crumpled and glass shattered. Wildrider disappeared from sight in a cloud of steam and smoke and dust.

Another Autobot who had been crouching beside the freeway with Hound stumbled up on to the freeway. Drag Strip couldn't recognize him, but he seemed unwounded and Wildrider definitely wasn't.

When in utter desperation, there was really only one thing left to do. "Motormaster?" Drag Strip said over the radio that seemed to be the last of his systems left functioning.

"Regrouping. Keep the slaggers busy. We'll be there."

_Keep the slaggers busy? How, by falling flat on my face and going into stasis lock? _

The Autobot peered into the trench and pulled a rifle out of subspace. Drag Strip drew his own gun and stumbled forward, glancing back as he did so for any other Autobots lying in wait. He saw a wet gleam on the road – the flames of the burning billboard reflecting off a huge pool of liquid that was trickling from the fallen tanker.

"Drop the gun!" the Autobot shouted.

Drag Strip turned, realizing that his approach had drawn the Autobot's attention; the rifle was now pointed at his chest. "All right," he said hoarsely. Even his vocalizer was glitched; after so much shouting at both Vortex and Wildrider, now he couldn't make any sound louder than a rasp. "All right, I'm dropping the gun."

_If this doesn't work… if I don't judge the angle correctly… no, ifs are for Dead End. I'm _doing_ it._

He stretched his arm out behind him as if getting ready to toss the gun away. His processors drew up an image of the road, the flames chewing through the billboard, calculations happening in nanoseconds.

Without looking back, he fired, once.

The gravito-gun's beam hit the billboard, instantly making it heavier than a concrete slab. Wooden supports snapped under its weight. The Autobot heard the sound and glanced in that direction as Drag Strip broke into a halting lope towards the trench.

The burning billboard tilted forward, then crashed down into the pool of liquid still flowing from the tanker.

WHOOM.

Drag Strip came back online to a darkness in which dozens of red alarms flashed at him. He couldn't see anything else, he couldn't move and now his radio was offline as well. He was trapped against two unyielding surfaces that felt hot and rough against the remains of his armor, and dust clogged his air intakes.

He stretched out blindly to one side and touched metal, then the jagged fragments of a broken headlight--

"Ow," Wildrider said weakly.

Drag Strip didn't know whether to be grateful that his teammate was still active or whether to hit him a good one for that little shoot-em-up session earlier. Before he could decide, heavy feet thudded on the lip of the trench above him. Fragments of road fell down on him, as if he wasn't injured enough already.

He stretched up to shield his head and a huge hand closed around his wrist. Before he could even gasp at the ruthlessly tight grip, Motormaster hauled him out of the trench and dumped him on the road before bellowing at Wildrider to transform.

Drag Strip struggled to his feet somehow – he hated looking weak in front of anyone, especially Motormaster. His visor was cracked into a spiderweb and he pushed it up, but that didn't make much of a difference. Hot gusts of smoke filled the air and obscured his vision, but through the cloud he heard something move towards him. Instinctively he brought his gun up.

"Is this a case of friendly fire or of my being taken off your slag list for good?" Dead End said, pushing the gun away. He turned to Motormaster, who had dragged Wildrider out as well. "Autobots converging on our position from the north. No Aerialbots in range, though."

Drag Strip stared at him. "You're _here_?"

"Where did you think I was? Still waiting outside Flagstaff?"

"You can be a real low-watt at times, Drag Strip," Breakdown said from somewhere in the smoke.

"Only at times?" Motormaster growled. "Throw 'em in the trailer and hit the road!"

Drag Strip thudded against the trailer's floor and managed to crawl out of the way before Wildrider was lifted in as well. As the doors closed and Motormaster's engine thundered, the warning _Stasis Lock Imminent_ flickered across his vision.

But he had to find out first. "What happened back there?"

The inside of the trailer was fitted with an intercom and Motormaster's voice came through. "The fragging 'bots knew about the race. Three of the cowards came at me and while I was dealing with 'em another one started shooting. Blew the road up." His laughter was a low, mocking rumble. "They ran for reinforcements so I backed up a bit and waited for Dead End and Breakdown. Teach the 'bots a good lesson – they interfere with _us_ and they get one hell of a mess to clean up."

Drag Strip had only one more question. He lifted his head off the floor, trying to speak as confidently as he could, and produced a raw whisper instead. "Did I…"

Wildrider chuckled. "You got such a one-track mind."

Drag Strip ignored that. "Did I win?" _I did fly part of the way, but the rule's against using your thrusters and lifters... it didn't say anything about hitching a ride on Vortex._

"I'll decide when we're back at base."

Motormaster could be so slagging sadistic at times. _Only at times? _"I reached you first... too bad you bet on Wildrider."

"Bet on Wildrider?"

"…Didn't you?"

Motormaster's voice was half-contemptuous and half-exasperated. "No," he said. "You're such an idiot, Drag Strip."

The words _Stasis Lock_ appeared and the world went dark.

* * *

**tomorrow4eva** : The Combaticons have Onslaught, who's a brilliant tactician. He came up with the electromagnet idea as a way to deal with the problem without the Combaticons getting their hands dirty - the Autobots would have been held responsible for whatever happened to Drag Strip.

I love it when characters think their way out of their problems. Course, blowing things up real good is also an option. :)

**Taipan Kiryu** : Yes, the combiner team rivalry's going strong here. Of course, in this chapter Wildrider's far more of a threat than the Combaticons, and no one's going to intervene when _he_ starts kicking afterburner.

And Dragoness Eclectic's stories were what got me interested in the Stunticons to begin with, so I'm happy to hear that I've done nearly as well with this story. Thanks very much for your feedback!


	9. The Autobots' Communications

**Chapter 9 : The Autobots' Communications**

"Prime, this is Bluestreak reporting in. I found Drag Strip where they said he'd be and I thought Sunstreaker had come to provide backup for me but it wasn't Sunstreaker at all. It was a Stunticon painted up to look like him and I thought he was just ignoring me when I tried to talk to him, so I--"

"Sunstreaker's here in the Ark. Or at least he was before he heard _that_."

"Ironhide here. We lost him. He hitched a ride on that flyboy Vortex and took off!"

"Uh, Prime? I've got Swindle on a secured channel."

"Tell him to forget it. I don't like the idea of paying Decepticons for information, and we're definitely not paying for half-truths or selective omissions. If he had warned us about that maniac Wildrider it might be a different matter."

"Prowl to Ark. The Stunticons are back on the ground and appear to be heading away from Phoenix."

"Bumblebee reporting. I'm sorry, Prime, but they just went right by me before I could shoot. And I think Wildrider was trying to kill Drag Strip."

"Was he succeeding?"

"Oh man, Prowl, you should've seen it. They looked like Wile E. Coyote finally catchin' up with the Road Run…"

"Jazz? What just happened?"

"Massive explosion on the I-17."

"Not Motormaster this time – it was a tanker spill--"

"Damage reports coming in."

"All Autobots, secure the area and make sure the Stunticons are nowhere near it before human response teams arrive. The Protectobots are on their way as well."

"What about Silverbolt and his squad?"

"There was a confirmed sighting of three Decepticon jets at an oil refinery up north – taking advantage of so many of our ground forces being in Arizona. The Aerialbots are dealing with them right now."

"Can we follow the Stunticons and finish 'em off ? It'd be easy if they're fightin' with each other--"

"I'm sorry, Ironhide, but containing the damage and making sure any human casualties are safe has to be our priority. Especially if the Stunticons are retreating."

"Doin' what Decepticreeps do best. Guess that comes of havin' a lotta practice at it."

"We'll deal with them another day. You can count on that."

* * *

**tomorrow4eva** : Appreciate the feedback! I wanted this chapter to have funny moments as well as tense ones, so it's good to hear that you were amused.

I think different Stunticons are good at different kinds of tactics. Breakdown is the long-range planner, partly because he's a scout and therefore sees things coming from a distance, and partly because that's his way to deal with a crippling phobia : make preparations that will take his weakness into account. Drag Strip is too impulsive to make many plans in advance, but he's good at thinking fast in a bad situation. He doesn't realize this, though, since the others (not wanting to send him on an ego trip) often call him stupid. Dead End is the intellectual of the gang, but he's often too apathetic or depressed to actually use whatever he knows, and Wildrider has that "thinking outside the box" specialty, except it's not clear whether he's actually thinking.

Which leaves Motormaster out. Hm.

**Steve** : There's one more chapter after this one, so wait for that before you tell me it's good. :) The ending often makes or breaks a story.

As for Drag Strip going to help Wildrider, that could be because of honor or friendship. Or it might be the inadvisability of telling your commanding officer that you left an injured teammate to die, when said commanding officer can be a sadistic bully even by Decepticon standards. Readers can decide which one's operating here (possibly both, IMO).

**Starfire201** : Thanks for the review. Swindle spilled some details of the race to the Autobots, hoping they'd intercept Drag Strip. And he'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling Stunticons.

**Northwest Sage** : Glad you like the story!


	10. No One's Victory

**Chapter 10 : No One's Victory**

Drag Strip activated his optics and found himself looking at the ceiling of the medical bay.

He lay in a repair berth, hooked up to an energon feed and a systems monitor. In the berth next to him, three of the Constructicons were fussing industriously over Wildrider.

Drag Strip didn't mind that as much as he would have if they had neglected him in favor of some other Stunticon. Wildrider hated lying still and waiting, so if the Constructicons had left him alone he would have started twitching and fidgeting. Soon he would have been trying to take the berth apart – or even pulling himself to pieces. As a result, when he came in for repairs, the Constructicons dropped everything else and made sure he left the medical bay as soon as possible.

So even though all they had done to Drag Strip was stabilize his systems and disconnect his primary pain sensors, he tried to be patient. Which wasn't easy when the Constructicons finally released Wildrider hours later (refusing to even let him stay to keep Drag Strip company), and then took a _break_. They sipped energon and read through some pathetic human literature with a huge magnifier. Finally they got started on him.

That turned out to be a long process, since his systems had been so badly battered that they needed extensive repairs. His tires and armor had to be replaced. Scavenger itemized all the souvenirs of the race that had been spattered on or embedded into his chassis – bullets, melted rubber, pieces of asphalt, pieces of a Ferrari, blobs of congealed plastic, wood splinters and crushed fruits – until Drag Strip longed to stuff the Constructicon's shovel down his throat.

"We didn't recognize you at first," Scrapper said.

"I can't say it wasn't an improvement." Hook removed a circuit board and studied it critically.

"Sounds like you put up a great fight," was Bonecrusher's contribution.

Drag Strip couldn't hold himself back any longer. "Did I win?"

The Constructicons exchanged looks. Scrapper ordered them to check for CPU damage and Hook replied that they were working on a Stunticon, so how were they supposed to tell? Only Scavenger seemed to take the question at all seriously. "Yes, you did," he said. "Don't you remember?"

Drag Strip remembered the exhaustion and terror of that race only too well. Just surviving it had been a relief, but he didn't even feel that much on hearing he had won. The intensity and desperation of the past night seemed to have burned through him and left only numbness behind.

He thought it might have been different if he had streaked past an actual finishing line and seen his victory with his own optics, rather than all-but-crawling into a battle zone and going into stasis lock before he could hear whether he had won or not. Or if he had heard about his victory from the Stunticon leader rather than from the Constructicon junkpicker.

Slag, it might even have been different if the Constructicons had praised him a little – that might have made his achievement seem real. But instead they ignored him after he subsided back into silence and prattled among each other about the race instead. Oh, not about the part where he had won, but about the roadblock and traps (they loved the electromagnet), the Vortex-ride, Hound's hologram and the explosion at the end (Mixmaster's optics lit up for that one). Not only did that mean everyone already knew the details – so Drag Strip couldn't look forward to telling his teammates about it – but all the excitement along the way seemed to have completely eclipsed the outcome of the race.

_And it was more of a fragging obstacle course than a race_, Drag Strip wanted to shout, _but I still won_. _Somehow._ He didn't say any of that, because he had a feeling the Constructicons would remind him of something he already knew, deep down – that he had won because of the other Stunticons, rather than in spite of them. Even Wildrider, inadvertently, since Drag Strip knew that if the Ferrari hadn't shot out his tires, it would have been him falling into the Autobot trap instead of Wildrider.

Which made the victory impersonal, as well as unreal. Even though he knew that he had only… Primus above… needed the other Stunticons' help because of Vortex's tricks and the Autobots' appearance, it didn't make much of a difference. You could hardly be the best member of your team if your team had saved your life, then carried you away looking as if a truck loaded with scrap and fruit pulp rolled over you.

So whatever the race had been meant to prove, it hadn't. Dead End was smarter, Breakdown was better at coming up with plans, Wildrider was more intimidating on the road (or the rooftops) and Motormaster was more intimidating, period. _I might still be the fastest, but is that enough? I guess not_.

The repairs to his internal circuitry went on for hours. After that Hook examined him for possible neural damage while Mixmaster and Scrapper prepared new armor and tires. By the time they had welded him back together, it was well into Drag Strip's second day in the medical bay and they allowed him to recharge there, though he came out of that to find his teammates visiting.

Unfortunately for Drag Strip, that was not a particularly soothing experience. The first thing he said was, "Did I win?" and the other Stunticons glanced at each other in the same, how-hard-did-he-hit-his-head way the Constructicons had done. Drag Strip pulled air through his intakes. _That didn't come out right_. "I meant, are you sure I won? No one challenged it?"

"You kidding?" Wildrider said. "You got to the boss first, didn't you?"

"He got to me first."

This time the three of them stared at him as if he had sported an Autobot sigil. Drag Strip went on, though – it was like sliding down a hill, and not being able to stop once you'd started. "And I flew part of the way on Vortex." Even if winning didn't feel real, perhaps having it taken away from him would.

"Ah, _that_." Dead End turned his head slightly towards Wildrider but continued speaking to Drag Strip. "It's evident how _you _reached that altitude, but not how Wildrider managed to do so as well. Without using his thrusters, I mean. Perhaps he was offered a ride by Omega Supreme and didn't wish to seem rude by refusing."

Sarcasm had no effect on Wildrider, other than to make his optics gleam a little more brightly. "That woulda been something," he said. "But don't worry, Dragster. You won and no one's challenged it. Slag, they'd be challenging Motormaster – he's the one who said you'd won."

"Actually, Onslaught told him that the outcome of the race should have been determined by an objecting judge--" Breakdown said.

"Objective."

"--but he said that when no one else was around."

Wildrider grinned from audial to audial. "You mean no one except you, sneaky. And what did the boss have to say?"

"He said he was fragging well objective, 'cause he can't stand either you or Drag Strip. But he still thinks you're a fragging sight better than any coward who tries to interfere with a Stunticon race. That was it from Onslaught."

_Weird_, Drag Strip thought, _that just might be the first compliment I've ever heard from Motormaster and it feels almost as flat as winning the race_. "I thought he'd be torqued," he muttered.

"Who, Motormaster?" Dead End said. "Yes, that was quite a placid response on his part. Perhaps he's dying."

"Oh, for Primus's sake," Breakdown said. "You know him – if he'd lost it and thrown a punch at Onslaught, the whole thing would be over by now. But if he's _calm_…"

"He's planning something?" Drag Strip found himself perking up a little at that. If there was some well-deserved payback for the Combaticons, he wanted to be at the forefront of it. But to his disappointment, Dead End explained that as far as most of the Decepticons were concerned, Swindle and Vortex had turned the race from a mildly interesting _Drag Strip vs. Wildrider_ to a spectacular _Drag Strip vs. the entire world and the laws of physics as well_.

"So if we take them down now, we won't be doing it with High Command turning a deactivated optic," Breakdown said. Drag Strip decided that he and Megatron didn't have much in common after all. "But we'll think of something."

"When they don't see it coming," Wildrider agreed. "And if the boss is with us too, you know it's gonna be fun."

"If it makes you feel any better, Drag Strip, we did really well with our wagers," Breakdown said. _How is that supposed to make me feel better?_ Drag Strip thought. "So we bought a new television for the common room."

"And a bunch of videos," Wildrider said. "I think we got your favorite – you know, the one with the red car."

"_Christine_ isn't my favorite film. I hate the ending."

Breakdown and Wildrider glanced at each other. Dead End just seemed glazed over, as though the conversation was so pointless (or depressing, or both) that his cognitive processors had shut down in self-defence.

"I don't get it," Wildrider said finally. "I thought you'd be happy, Dragster. You won."

_And that's pretty much it,_ Drag Strip thought. _You run the hardest race of your life and you get to spend days on end in the medical bay wondering whether it was worth it, while everyone else has a great time. Then they say "you won" and are surprised when a two-word tribute doesn't have you jumping with joy._

"This reminds me of a human saying I heard once," Breakdown said.

"I don't want to hear any squishy sayings," Drag Strip said, jarred out of his brooding. As if life wasn't bad enough, he had to listen to human pronouncements on the matter?

"I do," Dead End said. _Just to be contrary, the glitch_. "What's the saying?"

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle--"

"What kind of a stupid saying is _that_?" It was so close to his worst fear that Drag Strip lost his temper. "How on fragging Cybertron could speed have nothing to do with winning? Why do you even remember such aftheaded things, Breakdown?"

"Uh-oh," Dead End said. "Breakdown, I think you're on his slag list too."

"Who isn't?" Wildrider said and cracked up laughing. Then they left, although Dead End paused on their way out to say that humans weren't all bad, since one of them had sent a delightful picture of him to the _Arizona Republic_.

Drag Strip fumed some more, since he knew very well which picture it was. No matter how many races he ran, there would be no pictures of him streaking past the chequered flag and the finish line, no close-ups of his golden glory, no photographs of trophies or crowds cheering for him. No, the humiliating fruit stall incident was splashed across the news instead. Stunticon vs. Organic Produce.

"Are you all right?" Scavenger said.

"Do I look all right?" Drag Strip snapped, though when he saw the other Constructicons glance up from their work, he forced himself to speak a little more politely. Some time ago, his team had learned – the hard way – not to antagonize the Constructicons. "I just don't like the idea of humans laughing at me, that's all."

"Why shouldn't they?" Hook said. "Everyone else does."

Scavenger picked something shiny up from the floor and turned it over in one hand before he replied. "I don't think most of the humans were laughing."

"How would you know?" Drag Strip said.

Scavenger shrugged, and the movement made the shiny thing flash a reflection of yellow, sun-bright. "I read the newspaper that had your picture in it. Swindle sold us a copy."

"Yeah, they weren't laughing," Long Haul agreed. "They just went on about the risk to their lives and thousands of dollars property damage--"

"Pfft."

"--and how they wanted the Autobots to deal with you."

Drag Strip couldn't stifle a humorless laugh at that. "What are they, crazy? Wildrider couldn't stop me, so I'd like to see the Autobots try."

"But there was this one human who wrote that…" Scavenger trailed off and looked a little uncertain. "Do you want to read it?"

Ordinarily Drag Strip would have refused at once – after that stupid saying of Breakdown's, he really didn't need any more human inanity. Something about Scavenger's tone stopped him, though; he had a feeling the Constructicon was genuinely trying to make him feel better. Still, he didn't think a human could have written anything worth looking at.

"If you can read," Hook said.

Drag Strip was off the medical berth in the next moment. "Where is it?" he said, and Scavenger pointed at the worktable with the huge magnifier on it. "Letters to the Editor, in the middle of the section. And use those tweezers to turn the pages." Drag Strip finally found the page and scanned it, sifting impatiently through some repulsive fawning over the Autobots until he reached the correct letter.

"I can't help thinking that this war has produced senseless waste on both sides," the letter began. _Oh, stop whining_, Drag Strip thought. "One of the Decepticons I saw last night was a superb driver – he could have shone on the PIR."

He looked up from the paper. "What's the PIR?"

"Phoenix International Race-raceway."

"Thanks." Drag Strip went back to reading.

"I'd have loved to watch someone with that kind of speed and tenacity in a race," the letter continued. "But this being a Decepticon, I suppose it was inevitable that he misuse his skill to destroy as much as he could instead. It seems the Autobots are right about the malicious intents of…"

_No need to read any more_. Drag Strip put the tweezers down, trying not to grin. _I'm _that_ good. Even our enemies can't help admitting it. They've never complimented Wildrider or any of the others, but they complimented me._ He did feel a little disappointed that he wouldn't get to show his speed on the PIR, but he had won the race of his life and he was content with that. _For the time being._

_And what else did they say about me? Oh yes… that I'm not just fast, I'm tenacious as well._ Like Starscream, now that he came to think about it. They both had a never-give-up determination when they fixed on a goal, and wasn't Starscream the fastest of the Seekers as well? Yes, Drag Strip decided, he and the Air Commander definitely had a lot in common.

With somewhat more patience, he waited for the Constructicons to finish the last micro-weld and calibration, assured them that there was no neural damage and was finally released from the medical bay. He stopped in the corridor outside and radioed Soundwave to ask if Vortex was in the base. The answer came back in the affirmative, and for the first time Drag Strip actually walked through the ship. He wanted the time to think, and he didn't want to alert them with the sound of an approaching car.

Only Vortex and Brawl were in the Combaticons' break room when Drag Strip stepped in, which was fine with him. Swindle would get what was coming to him later, from the Stunticons as a whole, and somehow Drag Strip didn't hate _him_. Swindle did whatever he did for profit, whereas Vortex did what he did because he enjoyed it. _Well, enjoy_ this, Drag Strip thought, and strode towards the helicopter.

Brawl moved forward as if to block his way and Drag Strip said, "Don't. Not unless you want me to call the rest of my team." He stopped before Vortex, looking straight into the other mech's optics, and although he knew the Combaticon would never have showed fear on his own territory, it did occur to him that Vortex hadn't predicted this confrontation either.

"We're always going to beat you," he said. "We did it as a gestalt once, and now we did it as a team. We'll do it again in the future, any time you care to take us on. And if you ever try to mindfrag with me again, I'll kill you."

With that, he turned and walked out, transforming as soon as he was in the corridor. His freshly repaired systems twinged, but he didn't care as he started his engine and gunned it, then took off at top speed for the Stunticons' quarters. The door to their common room was open and he headed towards it.

"What about this one, then?" Breakdown was saying. "It's called _Duel_--"

Drag Strip skidded around the open door, leaning in to the turn and taking it on three tires. He tore into the room so fast that Breakdown yelped and leaped back, clutching a videotape. Drag Strip streaked across the floor, shot up the wall opposite and flipped off it, twisting in mid-air and transforming again so that his feet hit the ground. _Ow, that hurt a little._ But it was just the kind of smooth, stunning maneuver to be expected from a racer so skilled that even humans wrote in praise of him.

"Well, let's watch it," he said to Breakdown, "and I get the good side of the couch. Because I _won_!"

THE END

* * *

Thanks for the reviews, everyone!

**Starfire201** : I don't think I'd be too good at writing the Autobots (except for the Aerialbots, who are fun). Most of them are just not as dysfunctional and push-the-envelope as the 'cons. So they got a relatively short chapter. But I assume that when they found out they were manipulated by Swindle, his calls would not be returned no matter what he was selling, and losing that many customers has got to hurt.

**Taipan Kiryu** : I have a theory that if a character wants something desperately, struggles to get it and is treated very unfairly, the readers are going to sympathize with him no matter what his faults are (and even if what he wants is unethical or illegal, up to a point). Or, as in this case, even if they like his competitor better.

You're right about the short switch to the Autobots' point of view – that was a way to deccelerate and unwind after the tension of the race. I thought about splitting up the race chapter because it's so long, but I realized that it had to be an uninterrupted roller-coaster ride, just like the last stretch of the race itself. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the action and I appreciate your detailed feedback. :)

**tomorrow4eva** : That's true. Motormaster has just got to keep them going when they fight among each other, or get scared, or get depressed, or get distracted. Hm, maybe he's got the hardest job after all.

**Steve** : There you go, last chapter finally up. Hope it does a good job of concluding the story!


End file.
